


heavy in your arms

by glossolala



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fallen Castiel, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, M/M, Post Season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-07 14:13:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glossolala/pseuds/glossolala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s had his fair share of sleepless nights so he can sympathise, and he knows that even though Cas is being shitty about it, what he means when he says 'You don’t get to sleep if I can’t' is basically 'Help me, I don’t know what to do'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heavy in your arms

**Author's Note:**

> Post-S8, written before the S8 finale. Features snarky/pissy DeanCas, of course, because that is my favouritest thing in the whole wide world. Somewhat inspired by the Florence and The Machine song, 'Heavy In Your Arms', after which this fic is titled. 
> 
> Initially posted on tumblr, now posted here with minor edits. Thanks for reading~ Feedback and constructive criticism is always welcome.

“Dean. Get up.”  
  
The moon casts a faint light over the room from behind the curtains. Castiel is sitting up, blanket covering his bottom half and he looms over Dean’s curled up body in bed. “Come on.”  
  
Dean swats Cas’s hand from his shoulder and turns his face into the pillow, as if that’s actually, effectively going to help him escape from being rudely woken up in the middle of the night by his freaking bedmate.  
  
“Cas! For fuck’s sake, _what?”_    
  
He flips around to face him, flinging the covers off, after Castiel leans his weight on Dean’s back and blows gently in his ear. Cas’s smug smirk at successfully annoying him enough to get him to get up turns into an indignant frown after Dean’s little outburst and he says, “I can’t sleep. I don’t see why you should get to sleep if I can’t.”  
  
Dean narrows his eyes incredulously at Cas, speechless for a moment at how ridiculously late it is and how ridiculous it is that his lover is a pissy, grumpy, insomniac ex-angel and he thinks melodramatically: _‘Holy shit, why is this happening to me?’_  
  
He shakes his head at him, while Cas continues to frown, his mouth in a thin line. Even in the dim light, he can see the dark shadows under Cas’s tired, red-rimmed eyes. The longer he looks, the more details he manages to catch that are tell-tale signs of someone who has been unsuccessfully attempting to sleep; his ruffled hair, his skewed shirt, his stiff shoulders and clenched fists.  
  
Since Cas fell about a month ago, he’s been slowly growing more human, and along with humanity come all the little things you have to learn how to do, the things that come naturally to most normal people. Castiel, of course, is the farthest thing from normal. Dean knows that; even though Cas has been alive for millenia, watching humans on earth do what they do, his understanding is that of an outsider looking in. The finer details of humanity’s social and cultural customs _do_ fly over his head most of the time, but he understands the need for things like hygiene, sustenance and sleep, though only on an intellectual level. In actuality, it is so much more complicated and he’s been struggling, to say the least.  
  
Sleep-wise, Cas usually falls into sporadic naps throughout the day instead of sleeping through the night. On particularly stressful days, like today for example, —meaning days in which hunts go wrong and Dean gets hurt somehow, which causes Cas to basically turn into an anxious pile of nerves—, he can’t sleep at all for that night and a couple nights after that, only collapsing a few days later into a day-long sleeping marathon of sorts. And when he’s not sleeping he’s fatigued and angry about it, and Dean has to deal with all of that.  
  
Dean’s expression relaxes as he continues to watch his lover’s face. He’s had his fair share of sleepless nights so he can sympathise, and he knows that even though Cas is being shitty about it, what he means when he says “ _You don’t get to sleep if I can’t"_ is basically “ _Help me, I don’t know what to do”._  
  
Cas clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes (both expressions he’s learned recently, Dean thinks fondly), and he is now looking somewhere between annoyed at Dean —probably for staring at him like a dumbass for the last couple minutes— and just plain upset. Dean huffs a short laugh, because despite being a upset for Cas because he knows that all of this is difficult and frustrating, he’s also amused because Cas is fucking adorable despite his shitty mood, if not more so because of it (which makes him feel a little guilty).  
  
Dean grumbles at him, “Jesus.. stop looking at me like that or you’ll burn a hole in my face. Just.. get down here.”  
  
He fists one hand into Cas’s shirt and hauls him down unceremoniously unto his chest, circling his arms loosely around his back, one hand settling on his lower back while the other settles on his neck. Cas’s face is pressed against the crook of his neck and he can feel the other’s surprised puff of air on his collarbone and the barely-there relieved sigh that follows. His body is pressed up against him, warm and less tense now and one of Cas’s hands comes up and lays gently on Dean’s bandaged side, under which the newest addition to his many battle scars resides.  
  
“Dean…” he starts after a long pause, voice low, “I feel heavy. My body feels heavy... and my mind feels heavy too. I’m so tired. Why am I so tired?”  
  
Dean’s heart lurches at Cas’s tone of voice. He sounds legitimately distressed. Dean stops him before he talks himself into a full-blown panic. He tugs Cas closer to him and turns his head around slightly and kisses his temple, a simple touch of the lips meant to comfort, and then cards his fingers through the curls of hair at Cas’s nape as he speaks soothingly into his ear.  
  
“I know, Cas.. I know this is hard.. but you’ll get used to it, I promise. Just close your eyes and breathe for now. Try to relax and you’ll eventually go to sleep. I’ve got you, okay? “  
  
Dean pulls back and looks Cas in the eye, to reaffirm what he’s said, but the light from outside refracts the vivid but weary blue of his eyes, making his irises look like crushed glass. Dean forgets what he was saying for a moment. Cas quirks an eyebrow up in confusion but then he understands and that signature smirk of his returns with a vengeance. “Idiot,” then a pause, where Cas lifts a hand to Dean’s cheek and his expression drops to his usual soft but neutral gaze again. “Thank you.”  
  
His friend’s low, gruff voice and the look in his eyes makes Dean’s heart lurch again, for different reasons this time, and he chastises himself: ‘ _What are you, a freaking thirteen year old girl? Get it together—’_ but before he even thinks about it any further, Cas has somehow read his mind and he’s gotten very close, very quickly and his eyes flutter closed and his lips are on Dean’s.  
  
He’s surprised at first, and he laughs into Cas’s mouth in embarrassment and makes to pull away. Castiel actually _growls_ at him and he leans further into his lips and continues kissing him, tortorously slow yet forceful and determined. The strength behind the kiss makes Dean shudder, gives him gooseflesh and it makes heat swirl in his belly, stirring him to give back as good as he’s getting. Cas hums appreciatively and his lips part further, urging Dean to do the same, and tongue meets tongue in a curious, languid slide that seems to go on forever. Dean is breathless and dizzy, and he feels lost in the heat that’s coming off of both of them. Cas moves from his lips and kisses across his jaw and down his neck, his stubble scratching against his own, and remembering the sort of reaction he usually gets from wandering there, he stays, leaving wet, burning hot kisses across the expanse of Dean’s neck. Dean is attempting and failing at controlling himself, so he can’t help the groan that sounds in his throat. He can feel Cas’s resulting smile against his skin and he, in turn, smiles to himself and thinks, _‘You bastard’._  
  
Gradually, so that he almost doesn’t notice, Cas slows down and a few moments later, he has his face buried in Dean’s neck and he’s stopped kissing him completely and is instead breathing slow and steady, his arms now loose around Dean, his weight leaning into him more heavily. Dean moves away, holds the ex-angel at half-arm’s length to look at him.  
  
“Cas.. Cas?” he asks, and he chuckles quietly as he realises that Cas has fallen asleep. “Way to leave a dude hanging, man.”  
  
Castiel’s head lolls forward, eyes shut and lips slightly parted, and he looks so out of it that Dean’s surprised he lasted that long in the first place. Dean ignores his half-hard state and instead feels an intense surge of gratitude that Cas was actually able to go to sleep for once and that he’d been able to help calm him down enough for that to happen.  
  
He pulls Castiel gently back into his arms, sets his head back against his chest and uses one arm to pull the covers further up the bed to cover the both of them properly. Dean nuzzles his nose into the soft hair at the top of Cas’s head and breathes in, feeling his scent and the cold air in the room rushing into his lungs, seeping into his tired limbs. He closes his eyes and the sound of Cas’s own breathing and the warmth exchanged between their bodies where their skin meets causing him to slowly drift off to sleep too.


End file.
